Construction toys are designed and manufactured primarily to encourage and allow for free play and/or simulated real-life interactions. While the majority of construction toys tend to be of a miniature size, there is a separate category of toys that leverage the same concepts onto larger, near life-size structures. To this end, it has been reported that children from the age of 3 and above consistently display the tendency to play with large, near life-size structures whether built with manufactured configurations or homemade structures from blankets, pillows, and any furniture that can be arranged for support.
Within the category of large play structures, two distinct classes emerge. One class is pre-constructed, often fixed sizes and shapes for the sole purpose of providing for playing in and around such structures. The second class generally allows the assembly of a large play structure by children using different materials and methods. It is in this second category that the present invention resides.
In this second class, various types of construction methods and materials have been utilized to enable the children to create either particular play structures or less frequently, free forms and different configurations. In either case, such methods range from using similar, mass producible components that either interconnect via locking geometric shapes or fasten via external means and materials. These fastening material also vary widely.
Despite the attempts to provide for simulated life-interactions or just simple child's play, the products that exist within this category possess multiple shortcomings. The most obvious problem is the size of the fully assembled (fixed design) structure. Products that provide for life-size play whereby children can be allowed to enter, exit, or thereby occupy the said structure are typically of sufficient sizes that require large indoor spaces. A direct translation of this problem is the storage space required of such play structures once the play session is over. U.S. Pat. No. 4,978,301 (Dodge) provides construction pieces and connection strips for a final structure. Both the finished structure and the subsequent storage of the dismantled components illustrate this problem.
Another problem with existing play structure products is the lack of versatility. A few of the products attempt to address this issue by offering the ability to connect several separate structures. These designs, while providing for some variability of play, ultimately serve a single or limited play settings. Most products in this category have (if any) openings with covers in fixed positions simulating doors or windows, thus limiting the versatility of free play. With the fixed designs, a child's ability to explore, be creative, and learn from playing becomes limited. Despite claims of unlimited variability in final design, realistically U.S. Pat. No. 6,565,405 (Hsu, et al) provides only for very limited configurations based on three separate fixed-design objects.
A related problem to the existing structures defined as life-size is the actual size of the assembled configuration. While sufficiently large to allow small children to physically enter, exit, and occupy the said space, these structures are often too small for adults or older children who may participate in the social play. Hence, the definition of life-size is more accurately narrowed down to children's life-size, and not the real life-size as in everyday living. U.S. Pat. No. 4,629,182 (Rader) is an example of such structures. Because of this size limitation, adults, if engaged by the children, typically observe but do not actively participate in the play session. This deficiency restricts the extent to which social interactions can be achieved when adults are fully engaged in physical play with the children.
Yet another problem with the existing products is manifested with the types of material used in the manufacturing of these structures. Historically products have been designed and constructed with rigid materials such as wood, aluminum, heavy plastic, and other common building materials. Many of these materials present inherent risks when used as the composition of the play structure; they often pose too much structural rigidity which could cause physical harm if too much force is exerted upon them by the child. The toy tunnel structure described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,620,396 (Westphal) is an example of this type of rigid construction with hard surfaces.
Given the safety requirements of a child's play environment, many products have gone the route of using lightweight material such as foam, cardboard, vinyl, cloth, or a combination thereof. While the lighter materials are easier to handle, many cannot withstand the actual and reasonable force exerted by children in normal and sometimes rough play. This is especially true for designs made of vinyl that utilize an interlocking system. As demonstrated with actual prototypes built with vinyl inflatable material, and similarly depicted in the illustrations of U.S. Pat. No. 5,273,477 (Adams), over-inflation of said vinyl causes rigidity and difficulty in assembly while under-inflation causes interlocking structures to wobble; all the while the concept of maintaining a constant and consistent air pressure within an inflatable vinyl structure is not practically realistic. On the other hand, other designs that utilize an interconnecting method may contain either insufficient connectors to provide for structural integrity, or too many connectors that become cumbersome for quick connectivity and release. The amount of time it would require a child to assemble a structure as depicted in U.S. Pat. No. 4,708,684 (Chen) and U.S. Pat. No. 6,554,677 (Leemon) clearly illustrates this point. Likewise, inappropriately designed connectors could present safety hazards similar to those used in the rigid material constructions.
In these respects, the blocks-and-building system according to the present invention substantially departs from the conventional concepts and designs of the prior arts, and in so doing provides a superior methodology primarily developed for the enjoyment and utilization of boundless play structure configurations.
In view of the shortcomings inherent in the presently available play structures as described in the prior arts, the present invention provides a superior design whereby a design and system are made available to allow for novel methodologies for the construction and enjoyment of boundless play structures based on simple baseline units coupled with specifically engineered connector designs. Both the design of the baseline units and the system by which multiple configurations can be made will be described subsequently in greater detail. It should be noted that the resulting novel design of the present invention and its numerous benefits are not anticipated, rendered obvious, suggested, demonstrated, or even implied by any of the prior art play structures.
To accomplish this, the present invention requires geometric, inflatable blocks sufficiently light to be handled by small children while allowing unlimited scalability and versatility in designs and final structures. Specifically, the key to the potential of this present invention lies in the composition of the light, inflatable/deflatable material, and structural strength of the building units. Most importantly, it lies with the optimized specific design surrounding the connectors that meets each and every one of the objectives stated below. The baseline building block units have been designed to utilize heat sealed connectors capable of providing unanticipated motions and degrees of freedom rendering boundless configurations and unending creativity.